Case Study for Agency
03-1013441-192

VIRGIN ATLANTIC AIRWAYS
When Virgin Atlantic Airways was created in 1984, the world wasn’t
waiting for another airline to fly from New York to London.

But that didn’t stop the founder, English entrepreneur Richard Branson.


He was determined to take on People’s Express, which dominated the
budget segment of the market.

Hot Button research revealed, not surprisingly, that bargain-hunting
flyers weren’t at all averse to getting more for their money.

So, with extremely unairline-like advertising, direct marketing and
promotion, Virgin was successfully introduced as the first low-fare,
full-frills airline.

Then terrorism in Europe reared its ugly head, and overnight Virgin’s
load factors fell to nailbiting levels.

To rescue the airline, Virgin had to move away from its original
target, the young vacationer, and focus on the “must flier.”

In short, go from backpacks to briefcases.

With that, British Airways became the main competitor. Total immersion
into the business traveler showed that not everyone liked flying with a
stiff upper lip to London.

Our strategy was to focus on the added-value benefits to the business
traveler while maintaining Virgin’s loose upper lip personality.

Out-of-category ads and commercials centered around Virgin’s Upper
Class (their name for Business Class) and its unique features: Sleeper
seats. Chauffeured limousines. Sony Video Walkmen. Back rubs And free
coach tickets.

With the new positioning in place, Virgin Atlantic took off again. It
expanded to seven major U.S. airports, maintained the highest
transatlantic load factor of any airline.

Profitability increased as business class seats grew from 11 to 74 per
flight.

And with just 10% share voice, Virgin captured 30% of the Los Angeles
-to - London market in just six months, and bettered those results in
other expansion markets.
What follows is how...

The success of Virgin’s Newark to London introduction led to unexpected
profitability and funded the introduction of a Miami to London gateway,
whose success helped fund JFK to London and so on.

Introducing JFK was a challenge.Since Newark and JFK exist in the same
metropolitan area, Virgin would be doubling its seat capacity on the
most competitive route in the world.

The advertising positioned Virgin as the only airline to offer a choice
of New York airports to London.

In the first 3 months, JFK flights averaged an 86% load factor as
compared with industry average of 65%, without cannibalizing Newark.

Those load factors did not fall off from their average of 95%. Virgin
had the highest transatlantic load factors of any airline out of the
New York market.

In L.A., we found the market to be aware of Richard Branson as a music
mogul, and drawn to his flamboyancy.

Taking advantage of that, we introduced Virgin as “the entertainment
capital of the sky” and for the first time alluded to Virgin’s founder.

Within the first three weeks it resulted in 1,000 calls a day to
Virgin’s reservation agents and helped Virgin capture 30% of the L.A.
to London share in just six months.

Research found that the “Branson” campaign wouldn’t fly in blue-blooded
Boston. So, after soaking up the local lore, we crafted one we felt
would take off in New England.

And it did. During the first three months, load factors averaged 80%,
as compared to the goal of 65%.

In the San Francisco market, Virgin was an unknown. To quickly
establish Virgin as a contender, teaser advertising put them in the
same competitive set as British Airways.

After four weeks of advertising, brand awareness doubled, and the San
Francisco introduction turned out to be the most successful Virgin
launch to date.

In recognition of its success, Virgin has won two Effie awards from the
American Marketing Association for advertising effectiveness.

Our “Outsmarting the Outspenders” approach was in high gear for Virgin.

Although enormously outspent by their competitors, Virgin gained market
share at their expense.

NYCE
New Yorkers like instant gratification. They’re used to saying “taxi”
and a taxi appears. They’d love to say “money” and have that show up
instantly as well.

Enter Citibank with 625 ATMs and 10 million toadvertise them.Suddenly
customers of all other banks were flooding to Citibank for this added
convenience.

Deciding that the best defense is a good offense, eight of New York’s
major banks shared their resources and their ATMs and created the NYCE
cash machine network. 826 ATMS strong.

Our advertising objective was to generate immediate awareness of the
new network to stem the flow of depositors to Citibank.The strategy,
“Convenience you want, convenience you get.”

Rather than spread the annual budget out evenly over the year as the
media computer computed, we compressed most of it into five weeks of
television. The TV blitZ was followed by newspaper ads and statement
stuffers informing people theirs was “a NYCE bank”.

After the first eight weeks of advertising, the total awareness level
was 73% (29% aided and 44% unaided).

The one year goal of 9,000 “switched” transactions a day was reached by
the end of the first eight weeks.Twelve months after introduction,
daily transactions averaged to 42,000. The New York Times selected NYCE
as one of the Top 10 Marketing Successes of the Year, and NYCE received
an EFFIE for advertising effectiveness.

In just three years NYCE became the largest shared network with 3,478
ATM machines handling over 150,000 NYCE transactions
each day.

As further testament to the success of the NYCE network, “Citibank has
gone from the market leader to having to play ‘catch-up’.”

TRI-STATE HONDA
When the Tri-State Honda Dealer Association came to us, Honda’s
national and New York market share were slipping.(National at 7%. New
York at 6.2%.)

We needed to create a campaign for them that would a)build store
traffic b) increase sales and c) gain share in the New York market,
without reducing the perceived value of the brand.

Research showed that the quality of the car was the key to Honda’s
success.

It also revealed that most people dislike shopping for a car because
they consider car salesmen pushy, high pressure and hard sell.(29% of
respondents said they’d rather go to the dentist than a car dealer.)

Combining these pieces of knowledge, we developed the following
strategy:“Convince customers that Honda dealers are special because
they make shopping for a car a pleasant experience.”

We wanted the commercials to communicate that Honda salespeople aren’t
pushy, high-pressure or hard-sell. They don’t have to be. They sell
Honda. “The car that sells itself.”

That gave birth to “Danny,” the hapless salesman that never gets to
show his stuff.

Right after the campaign broke, Honda’s declining share in the New York
market reversed sharply, and over a seven-year period climbed to 73%
higher than their national share.

This impressive performance was achieved without the use of
image-eroding discounts, rebates or clearance sales.

CELEBRITY
Celebrity Cruises was a brand-new luxury cruise line entering the
market during a war and a recession.

What they saw on the horizon was a discounting bloodbath.

A cruise is a perishable commodity.If a ship leaves the pier at 80%
capacity, the chances were slim they’d pick up any more passengers at
sea.

The dual objective seemed contradictory:1) establish an image for
Celebrity that would assure maximum per diems and. 2) create
hard-hitting retail advertising designed to maximize 800 number
requests for their brochure.

Unlike typical cruise advertising that romances the ship to experienced
cruisers, Celebrity's campaign took a different tack.

During the planning process, we uncovered the fact that everyday stress
could be a powerful inducement to cruise.

To stand out in a sea of sameness, our “Allow us to exceed your
expectations” campaign spoke to potential passengers in “real-people”
terms offering them an easy escape, then closed with a strong “ask for
the order.”

To meet the daily pressure to drive potential passengers to travel
agents, our retail strategy for Celebrity initially devoted 80% of the
budget to newspapers for the impact, immediacy, and quick turnaround
they provide.

The newspaper ads generated so many responses that resulted in
bookings, the radio and television phases of the plan were considered
unnecessary — saving 25% of the media budget.

Their Bermuda runs were consistently booked at over-capacity.

This allowed Celebrity to advertise winter itineraries two months ahead
of the competition.In less than one year Celebrity became the number
one cruise line from New York to Bermuda.

In just six years their fleet grew from two ships to five, and their
itineraries expanded from one to seven.

It was then that the television and radio came into play.

METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY (MTA)
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is one account made up of
seven accounts: the MTA, New York City Transit (subways and busses),
Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad, Bridges and Tunnels, Long
Island Bus and MetroCard.

Seven state agencies with seven sets of personalities.

Five days Korey Kay and Partners won the account, our first ad appeared
in the paper.For the MTA, that is the norm, not the exception.

The MTA’s first corporate brand line “Going your way.” and two
divisional campaigns were immediately created.

One for New York City Transit to increase usage of the subways among
customers and non-customers.

The other, a joint campaign for the two railroads.In both cases,
increasing ridership and changing public opinion so perceptions come
into line with reality were the goals.

Research showed that people literally and figuratively felt like they
were “left in the dark” when dealing with New York City subway system.
We believed that advertising could provide a human presence.

Our strategy was to create a voice for Transit that communicated that
there is a plan and someone is in control. And “SubTalk” was born — a
campaign that told what was going on in the subways in surprisingly
human terms.

The objective for the railroads was to convince potential customers
that taking the train was the sensible way to commute while reinforcing
the benefits of the train to current customers.

The television and radio campaign featured real employees conveying the
benefit of taking the train: “Your train time is your own time” was the
strategic message.

Combined Results: Their Citywide Survey found customers rated subway
service at an all time high. But the biggest indicator of all is subway
ridership. In the past it was directly tied to emp loyment.

When New York City employment went up 2%, subway ridership went up
2%.When employment fell 3%, ridership fell 3%. No advertising had been
able to change that.But that changed.

In the first year of the “SubTalk” series employment rose just 0.9%,
but subway ridership rose 5.6%. This translates into roughly 200,000
more customers.

As for the railroads, newspapers reported ridership going form a lull
to hitting new records. Those results as well as the success of
MetroCard and EZ-pass led to Korey Kay being chosen as the MTA’s agency
for an unprecedented third three-year term.